Non-overlapping magesteria

[Thumpalumpacus]

Yes, in that we can discover why it is that certain standards for beauty, or cuteness, or any other attribute of appearance, based on our evolutionary lineage and psychology, and create a rough metric from that. It's not going to be perfect, but then, what is?

Why is it that these people only find it worthwhile to ask questions like these about pleasant sensible experiences. Why don't they seek the smell of shit in its purest sense? Why is it that "itchy balls" are not ever searched for In any platonic form sense? Theists seem to suffer from an extreme prejudice with regards to descriptive experiences.

Wait, who are "these people" you're referring to, and are you including me amongst them? You seem to be assuming I'm a theist ... you could not be further from the truth of the matter.

As for why artists don't seek to reproduce itchy balls, I'd imagine that:

1) Much art portrays the unpleasant, no matter the unspoken premise of your point. Check out Slayer, or Heironymous Bosch, right? Free jazz is predicated on unsettling the listener and taking them out of their comfort zone. I used to blast Coltrane's "A Love Supreme" to pay back my asshole neighbor for waking me up at five AM on a Saturday morning. Itchy balls and atonal music and visions of hell populate art, in one form or another.

2) Artists who do seek to invoke the unpleasant experiences in their work don't rise to popularity, generally, precisely because such works aren't sought-after. I mean, we don't need to buy a painting of skidmarks in underwear, right? Most of us leave 'em there anyway, and they ain't pretty.

One reason why art more often focuses on the beautiful instead of the ugly is that the beautiful is often presented as a counterpoint to our ugly world, and the art of beauty is in that sense used to criticize what we've already created.

But the art of beauty is not the only art around. Pollack and Lovecraft and Sonny Sharrock and Andy Warhol and countless others have carved careers out of reminded us how vain, or vapid, or ugly, or evil we humans can be.

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And what would those numbers say about the nature of beauty?

Suppose I hypothesized that round faces are more beautiful than other shapes. Suppose, then, I devised and executed an experiment testing that hypothesis. Suppose I showed photographs of faces to thousands of people around the world, and found no significant correlation between basic face shape and perceived beauty.

That would be a scientific fact about beauty.

What, exactly, would that say about the nature of beauty? How would it help to delineate it?

Or suppose you gave it as your opinion that there are no scientific facts about beauty. That would be self refuting. Unless, that is, your claim was merely religious, having nothing to do with science.

Not at all. The thing is, science doesn't address æsthetics. If it did, you could design a paint-by-numbers board and everyone would be as artistic as Michelangelo. That's obviously silly, and the reason why is because artistry is tied up in vision and message and emotional gravity. Science is well-equipped to examine objective reality, but this presumption that it is powerful enough to delineate the emotional lives of people is not borne out by experience.

I'd love to have a heuristic that would let me write a song a day and every one of those songs be perfectly moving and emotional ... but I can tell you, that after thirty-five years writing songs and playing several different instruments: there ain't no such critter. There is no science to good and bad art, no matter the medium, and that is because art is where vision meets technique, and only one of those factors is susceptible to rational analysis.

But you could hardly make a claim about science that didn't bear on science.

Obviously.

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Beauty exists as a perception facilitated by a combination of genetic and experience based neurology.

Therefore complete description of any instance of perception of beauty must be encompassed by a fundamental description of the mechansim and behavior of the specific instance of the Neurology that facilitated it.

What predictions could such a broadly-stated hypothesis make? Be specific. Could you point to neural connection A leading directly to beauty perception B? Simply describing the neural network and its state doesn't describe beauty any more than describing your fingertips outlines the difference between feathers and frog-skin.

[robvalue]

My point was that if you are interested in finding out the truth of a claim, science is the only way to do it. There is no "other system" which can take over when science cannot "deal with" the claim. It's the claim that is the problem if science cannot deal with it. Usually because it's unfalsifiable.

If your "other system" has any inherent logic and consistent methodology, then it is scientific. It may be a really bad attempt at science and utterly flawed however. Which is what happens when you try to prove unfalsifiable claims.

[Thumpalumpacus]

My point was that if you are interested in finding out the truth of a claim, science is the only way to do it. There is no "other system" which can take over when science cannot "deal with" the claim. It's the claim that is the problem if science cannot deal with it. Usually because it's unfalsifiable.

If your "other system" has any inherent logic and consistent methodology, then it is scientific. It may be a really bad attempt at science and utterly flawed however. Which is what happens when you try to prove unfalsifiable claims.

I get what you're saying, Rob. I think that there are different kinds of truths. Some are objective and measurable, and science -- or mathematics -- is the perfect tool for getting at them. Others are logical, and that is the discipline you should use to address them.

But there are other sorts of truths as well, that are personal and subjective, but every bit as real, to us, as we experience them, and science is powerless to describe them. I've buried my father. What is the science of that, and does the science describe the experience? I've held my son in my arms. Same questions for you.

You wouldn't use feelings to describe the structure of RNA. Why would you use science to describe the structure of emotions? There is your non-overlapping magisteria.

[robvalue]

Emotons can be studied as configurations in the brain though.

It only becomes unstudyable once you abstractly wrap it in different languages. And emotions don't seek truth; or if they do, there is at least some methodology involved. I'm not trying to be a dick, just attempting to explain my point I'm sure we agree anyway and I'm just fighting for 1 square millimetre of ground on an epic battlefield.

But sure, people can decide what is true "for them". But I guess I should have been clearer, I'm talking about things that are true to everyone. Like, for example, a particular God exists or he does not, he doesn't exist for one person and not for another. They may claim it does, but that doesn't make it true.

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And religion obviously has an agenda of trying to use this kind of hand waving as a way to sneak in unfalsifiable truths about Religion. And these are usually claims of knowledge, without justification, claiming that there is a "different sort" of justification. What I'm saying is that this is not valid, and stuff doesn't become independently true because you find it "personally" true.

[robvalue]

A good argument against this bollocks is that each different religion is using the same "technique" and getting different, contradictory results. And since no actual method has been used, there's no way to determine which is "correct". Unlike actual methods, which tend to converge.

I find it hilarious when one religion tells another it is wrong, because it's religion has more impressive miracles or so-called meanings. Never mind that we both made them up out of nothing, now we're going to see who has the most impressive fairy tale?

[Brian37]

Utter bologna. Your car, your computer, your cell phone, your medicine do not operate on "crapsteria".

How about reality. Humans like the idea of a sky hero. It allows them to ignore their finite existence.

This is simply the religious trying to separate wishful thinking from science. When they cant attack science they claim it is separate. When science conflicts with their claims they try to co opt it to prop up their myth.

[The Reality Salesman01]

Wait, who are "these people" you're referring to, and are you including me amongst them? You seem to be assuming I'm a theist ... you could not be further from the truth of the matter.

Nah, I wasn't speaking to anyone specifically. I'll admit, I had been skimming through the thread while inebriated and there was just something in the nature of that all too familiar line that struck a chord.

I was talking about people who are convinced that morals could not exist without some divine entity commanding them to be. They assert that whatever this "goodness" is that we are able to recognize, we cannot point to why it is good rather than bad, and that there must be some source of goodness that is not merely something that is good, but the entirety of goodness in and of itself...

...I hear things like this, and that's when I wonder why they've excluded all other physical descriptive experiences. I wonder why they do not contemplate the purest form of the smell of shit when they recognize they've just inhaled a fart? It seems to be the other side of the coin and yet it is intuitively a stupid question. The same can be said about "Moral Absolutes". That's all I was saying...

I saw someone mention The Moral Landscape, and I think there are some really good points made in that book. If we aim to mold our actions around a sense of good that is defined by maximizing the state of well being in conscious creatures, then there are certainly better and worse ways of doing that. And if we think of our decisions in those sorts of terms, it becomes apparently absurd to suggest that religion has ever offered any absolute moral compass that has aided in anything but complicating the path to an ideal moral society.

A simple rule of thumb, don't be a dick. I think think that rule combined with a smidgen of empathy and a huge dose of humility are the ingredients to a much better world. Peace!

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But sure, people can decide what is true "for them". But I guess I should have been clearer, I'm talking about things that are true to everyone. Like, for example, a particular God exists or he does not, he doesn't exist for one person and not for another. They may claim it does, but that doesn't make it true.

If there is a single point that applies to 90% of the threads ever started on this forum, my bet is that this would be the one. Unfortunately, I think this is the one that gives the religious the most trouble.

I think their difficulty comes from their certainty pertaining to their own personal experiences and emotions. They are certain that they feel something about God(s), they are certain they experience it. My being unable to confirm this truth of theirs is irrelevant to their confidence and from their perspective, they are right. I will concede that they feel these things and that God is real for them. God is real for them in the same way that they may consider a particular painting to be a masterpiece. But their own experience is where that truth stops. Making claims about the existence of "x" is something quite different than describing art or other subjective experiences.

One cannot claim that there is no conflict between religion and science and then go on to make empirical claims that they then assert to be immune to scientific inquiry. Either "x" exists and it has real physical and material properties that can be tested, quantified, and predicted or it does not. And if it in fact does NOT, then to continue to persist the contrary is to demonstrate a continued misunderstanding of the truth.

[Thumpalumpacus]

Emotons can be studied as configurations in the brain though.

It only becomes unstudyable once you abstractly wrap it in different languages. And emotions don't seek truth; or if they do, there is at least some methodology involved. I'm not trying to be a dick, just attempting to explain my point I'm sure we agree anyway and I'm just fighting for 1 square millimetre of ground on an epic battlefield.

But sure, people can decide what is true "for them". But I guess I should have been clearer, I'm talking about things that are true to everyone. Like, for example, a particular God exists or he does not, he doesn't exist for one person and not for another. They may claim it does, but that doesn't make it true.

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And religion obviously has an agenda of trying to use this kind of hand waving as a way to sneak in unfalsifiable truths about Religion. And these are usually claims of knowledge, without justification, claiming that there is a "different sort" of justification. What I'm saying is that this is not valid, and stuff doesn't become independently true because you find it "personally" true.

I get what you're saying, and share your distaste for religionists who use this reasoning to smuggle their gods into reality.

But I do think there's a danger in thinking that any one methodology, or approach, or heuristic can describe any given situation. Even science has its limits. We may well be able to understand that molecule X engenders experience Y, but that is not the same as conveying the experience. Both art and emotions are abstract processes, which aren't really susceptible to things like reproducible experimentation and direct causality.

Hammers are great for driving nails, not so great for setting screws, and I don't understand the angst which pointing out such an obvious fact arouses.

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Nah, I wasn't speaking to anyone specifically. I'll admit, I had been skimming through the thread while inebriated and there was just something in the nature of that all too familiar line that struck a chord.

I was talking about people who are convinced that morals could not exist without some divine entity commanding them to be. They assert that whatever this "goodness" is that we are able to recognize, we cannot point to why it is good rather than bad, and that there must be some source of goodness that is not merely something that is good, but the entirety of goodness in and of itself...

...I hear things like this, and that's when I wonder why they've excluded all other physical descriptive experiences. I wonder why they do not contemplate the purest form of the smell of shit when they recognize they've just inhaled a fart? It seems to be the other side of the coin and yet it is intuitively a stupid question. The same can be said about "Moral Absolutes". That's all I was saying...

I saw someone mention The Moral Landscape, and I think there are some really good points made in that book. If we aim to mold our actions around a sense of good that is defined by maximizing the state of well being in conscious creatures, then there are certainly better and worse ways of doing that. And if we think of our decisions in those sorts of terms, it becomes apparently absurd to suggest that religion has ever offered any absolute moral compass that has aided in anything but complicating the path to an ideal moral society.

A simple rule of thumb, don't be a dick. I think think that rule combined with a smidgen of empathy and a huge dose of humility are the ingredients to a much better world. Peace!

Sorry for having misunderstood you, then. I certainly share your dislike of moral absolutism -- and also the bankruptcy of asserting that such absolutism can arise from divine command (when in fact all divine command does is impose one being's morality upon another). We see the fallacy of this thinking when we see believers who do not think working on the Sabbath should be a capital offense, or who don't think homosexuals should be killed for being gay. They are obviously picking the support for their own a priori moral precepts, not imbibing the morality that they claim is absolute even as their actions reveal it to be both relative and subjective.

[robvalue]

I use a hammer on everything. Nail, screw, light bulb, small child in a pram, arresting officer...

[Pyrrho]

This term was mentioned in another thread.

Non-overlapping magisteria (NOMA) is the view advocated by Stephen Jay Gould that science and religion each have "a legitimate magisterium, or domain of teaching authority," and these two domains do not overlap
...
"the magisterium of science covers the empirical realm: what the Universe is made of (fact) and why does it work in this way (theory). The magisterium of religion extends over questions of ultimate meaning and moral value. These two magisteria do not overlap, nor do they encompass all inquiry (consider, for example, the magisterium of art and the meaning of beauty)."

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Non-overlap...agisterial

It seems to me that "purpose" and "beauty" are within the magisterium of science too. For example, science can measure psychological wellbeing, productivity, emotional reaction, etc.

Take the example of cooking recipes. Science can measure the quality of recipes in various ways. One recipe might be nutritious. Another recipe might have mass appeal...

I think the motive for such a step is more pragmatic than it is an attempt at saying something literally true. The idea is to get the religious nut cases to stop making ridiculous claims about biology and other matters of scientific interest, and so a kind of truce is declared by putting forth the idea that religion and science are so fundamentally different that they should not attempt to say anything about each other.

This is similar to Obama saying that the Muslim extremists are not really religious. It is not literally true, but it conveys the important truth that the extremists do not represent the majority of Muslims any more than the Inquisition represents the majority of Christians. Obamas aims are political, not academic, and so he chooses his words accordingly.

In this specific case, since religions, like Christianity, typically say that certain things happened in history, obviously, those things can be investigated in precisely the same manner as any other historical claim may be examined.

But, again, I think the motives for such a move are where one should look for understanding why the position is taken. Obviously, if one is going to take such a position, one cannot pretend that it is just a diplomatic move; one must say it is true, or it fails from a diplomatic standpoint.